The 2 Most Buzzed About Shows From Day 8 of Paris Fashion Week

Oh Sarah Burton! How well you played this one for Report Card. Karl blew many critics away with his breezy take on going green for Chanel, but when it comes to scoring the most "buzz," your honeycomb dresses and wasp-waists made you the McQueen Bee.
So, about that buzz...

Oh Sarah Burton! How well you played this one for Report Card. Karl blew many critics away with his breezy take on going green for Chanel, but when it comes to scoring the most "buzz," your honeycomb dresses and wasp-waists made you the McQueen Bee.

"Fashion is body armor. At least it is for Sarah Burton, who tapped her fantastical imagination for Alexander McQueen to conjure up fashion week's most original show: Mixing insect-like armory with on-trend stiff bar jackets of the New Look, as well as 19th century crinoline." {The Associated Press}

"A number of garments--dresses, shirts, and jackets included--demonstrated a clever use of the wasp waist. When could it be more appropriate to revive this McQueen trope than in a collection inspired by bees? Yes, the inspiration here came across literally, but the clothing certainly didn't suffer for it." {fashionologie}

"The queen bee and her hive were the starting points for a collection which was, as is right and proper at McQueen, tempting as honey but with a deadly sting." {

"Sarah Burton created a sharp, magical bit of fantasy on Tuesday night for McQueen. ... As always, the McQueen workmanship was impressive, but Ms. Burton captivated her audience with the textures and humming society of the queen’s world." {On The Runway/The New York Times}

"Forget the obvious--she has, after all, proved herself the McQueen Bee with a spectacular string of buzzy fashion coups. Instead, think about a honey-based color palette, plus the patterning possibilities of comb, plus the frisson of the bee sting, plus the salient fact that Burton is an expectant mother. All of which equals a collection as conceptual and precise as anything from Lee McQueen's heyday, but with an added--and odd--intimacy." {Style.com}

"The pretty, exaggerated prom dresses, studded with flowers (after all, bees need pollen) at the end expressed that lightness best. McQueen has a large list of personal clients who queue for dresses made to measure. They’ll be swarming all over these." {Vogue.com}

"This really was a perfect collection--taking honey in all its forms and working it up into the most beautiful clothes." {Vogue.com UK}

"Less than a day from the close of a grueling, seemingly endless fashion season, it seemed fitting (if perversely so) to celebrate those bastions of hard work and distinctive, functional design--bees." {WWD}

"Chanel can be accused of obtuseness and political incorrectness; it once trucked in an iceberg. In the end, the turbines didn’t really add anything to the show, except an absurd sense of delight each time you looked up at the white blades." {The New York Times}

"Lagerfeld's Chanel, once again, left us surprised and at the edge of our (desk) seats." {Refinery29}

"Those turbines might also have been a metaphor for the designer’s own astonishing reserves of energy, expended this season on a dizzying deluge of ideas poured into the 80 looks that careened down that epic runway and ran the gamut from baby-doll frocks in linen chambray, denim, or gingham tweed, to sophisticated long evening dresses in monastic black and white." {Vogue.com}

"This was the chicest take on ecology you've ever seen." {Vogue.com UK}

"Lagerfeld’s enthusiasm for such range, and his ability to realize it so masterfully, is part of what makes his Chanel the phenomenon it is." {WWD}

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If you want grand, artistic statements with your fashion, look no further than Paris! On the penultimate day of the Spring 2014 season, critics were buzzing about Valentino and Alexander McQueen's refined takes on ethnic craftsmanship. And then, of course, Karl Lagerfeld went all "Picasso Baby" at Chanel.
Click through to find out what the critics had to say.

Pop quiz: Design in Paris is A) conceptual B) kinda weird C) joyous D) all of the above. On a day that zipped from Space Age sportswear at Junya to crushed can crowns and Comme, Report Card can tell critics were thinking really deeply about meanings. So extra credit goes to Jean Paul Gaultier for interrogating the dichotomy between a runway show and a concert--and reminding us all that fashion is also FUN!
Here's what the critics were buzzing about.

Well, here we are. Le fin of Paris Fashion Week--and the end of our four-week, four-city international fashion marathon. On the day of second acts, Miuccia Prada did some typically subversive takes on '50s shapes at Miu Miu. But it was Marc Jacobs--that guy who defined this season's graphic obsession with his collection of stripped down stripes for his namesake line back in New York--who made Louis Vuitton's iconic damier motif look not-so-square. Checkmate.
Here's what the critics were buzz-buzz-buzzing about.